Overview of the importance of nutritional assessment in health care, the different methods used, and the key components involved in assessing an individual's nutritional status.
Introduction to Nutritional Assessment
Purpose: To provide a concise, organized overview of why and how nutritional status is evaluated in clinical, community, and research settings.
| Goal | Example Applications |
|---|---|
| Identify malnutrition | Hospital admissions, pre‑surgical screening |
| Guide nutrition therapy | Tailoring enteral/parenteral formulas, diet prescriptions |
| Monitor treatment outcomes | Tracking weight gain in undernourished patients, weight loss in obesity programs |
| Prevent disease complications | Reducing infection risk, improving wound healing |
| Support public‑health planning | Surveying prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies, designing food‑fortification policies |
Anthropometric Measurements
Biochemical Data
Clinical Evaluation
Dietary Assessment
Social & Environmental Factors
| Tool | Setting | Key Features |
|---|---|---|
| Subjective Global Assessment (SGA) | Hospital, outpatient | Combines history (weight change, intake) + physical exam; classifies A (well‑nourished), B (moderately malnourished), C (severely malnourished). |
| Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) | Elderly care | Short questionnaire + anthropometry; scores ≤ 23.5 indicate risk. |
| Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST) | Community, primary care | BMI, weight loss, acute disease effect; produces low, medium, high risk. |
| Nutrition Risk Screening (NRS‑2002) | Hospital | Disease severity + nutritional status; score ≥ 3 triggers intervention. |
| GLIM Criteria (Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition) | Research, clinical | Requires ≥ 2 of 3 phenotypic (weight loss, low BMI, reduced muscle mass) and 1 of 2 etiologic (reduced intake, disease burden) criteria. |